


The Ninth Circle

by communikate



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Betrayal, Blood, Blood and Gore, Drowning, Gen, Ghosts, Horror, Near Death Experiences, Needles, POV Pidge | Katie Holt, Paranoia, Psychological Horror, Violence, betrayal at house on the hill - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-03-25 05:58:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13827954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/communikate/pseuds/communikate
Summary: It was routine: their weekly game night to play whatever new game Pidge managed to get her hands on. Simple. Easy. Normal.But tonight was not normal, not even close. They woke in an old house on a hill with flashlights as their only means of light, dressed like the game’s characters and clutching to each other for support.And their only means of escape? Explore the haunted house that threatened to kill them at every turn, attacking them through every opened door. Bloodied, tortured, and tormented them. But they had each other, at least until the game took that away too.Because the ninth circle of hell is reserved for betrayers.





	1. What the . . . ?

**Author's Note:**

> This is my piece for the Event Horizon Horror Big Bang!!!
> 
> If you've never played Betrayal at House on the Hill, [here's a link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xrHigE22Ao) to a youtube video explanation and play through. It's toooootally not necessary to watch in order to read the fic, but I thought I should just give it you guys in case you were interested!!
> 
> I'm so so thankful to my wonderful wonderful artist Lyrikin!! You'll be seeing her wonderful art next chapter!
> 
> So I hope you enjoy!!

“Guys,” Pidge sighed, plopping her chin on the table and extending her arms, “Tonight’s supposed to be game night. Isn’t that why we’re all here?”

Lance turned to face her with bits of cookie stuck to his lips and shrugged his shoulders. Hunk at least looked a little ashamed, holding a tray of delicacies he was having the group taste. Walking over to the table with a cookie in one hand, Keith twisted the game box so he could read it.

“We can do more than one thing in a night,” Lance commented, swallowing the last of his food and looking to Shiro and Allura for support.

Pidge groaned, “Yeah, but we’ve been eating for three hours and the minimum gameplay is an hour.” She waved a hand at Shiro and Allura, “And we all know the adult’s bedtime is coming up.”

“Alright, alright. Pidge’s right,” Shiro admitted, dusting his hands off on his pants and pulling out his chair at the table. “So what game is it this week, Pidge?”

She immediately perked up at the real beginning of game night. Sitting up, she pulled the box out from under Keith’s fingers, ignoring the small noise of annoyance he made in the back of his throat. With the flick of her wrist, she lifted the lid and displayed it for all of her friends to read, “It’s called Betrayal at House on the Hill.”

Beginning to lay out the game pieces, Pidge shooed away Hunk’s attempt to put food on the table. She may have gotten the game at a yard sale, but that didn’t mean she wanted crumbs and sticky fingers all over it.

Allura grabbed the manual, flipping through and reading a fast overview. “In _Betrayal at House on the Hill_ , each player chooses an explorer to investigate a creepy old house. As you explore -”

Pidge cut Allura off, pulling the thick rulebook from her fingers, “It would literally take an hour just to explain the game if you read through the entire thing.” She pulled out the two other rule books and placed them beside her, “Besides, Matt and I played the game at his friend’s place two weeks ago.”

“Is that why you bought it?” Hunk questioned, being the last one to finally take a seat at the table.

“Yeah! I saw it at a yard sale last week, so I just couldn’t pass it up!” She explained, excited to begin the game, eyes lighting and tone rising, “You’ll understand once we start.”

She pulled out room tiles, square cards that had different floors denoted on the back. Three of the room tiles were different from the others that she laid out: the entrance hall that was connected to grand staircase which led to the upper landing and the unreachable basement landing.

“These are the three floors of the house, and it’s laid out like a blueprint. Each person gets an explorer, and our job is to explore the house through unexplored doorways here.” She pointed to the highlighted yellow door ways on each side of the room cards.

“Each person gets a character to play,” Pidge picked up the hexagonal character cards and passed them around.

Pidge passed the purple card with Heather Granville, an all rounder with great stat up potential, to Allura. Printed on a bright red card, Darrin “Flash” Williams, the fastest character in the game, was given to Keith. While the elderly Father Rhinehardt, the most sane explorer in the game, was Shiro’s character. Lance was the fortune telling Madame Zostra, an all rounder. The yellow character card was given to Hunk, depicting Zoe Ingstrom, a young girl more sane than her looks and backstory portrayed. And finally, Pidge gave herself the green Brandon Jaspers, a young boy with decent knowledge potential.

“So each character has stats on the side,” Pidge explained, pointing at the edges of her own green character card for demonstration. “Speed and might are the physical, and sanity and knowledge are the mental. If any of your stats drop to the skull,” she pointed to the small skull in the place of a zero, “you die.”

Keith picked up his corresponding figure, examining who he would be playing as for the next hour and a half.

“You explore the house using your speed to get around, and when you explore a new room, there’s a yellow symbol that corresponds to a card you draw.” Pidge pointed to the piles of cards she had put in front of her with small yellow swirls and birds and skulls printed in the corners. “There are events which normally require you to roll in order to gain or lose stats. Items which are all helpful throughout the game. And omens,” Pidge darkened her voice, attempting to make them sound scary as she shuffled through the greenbacked cards, “which trigger the haunt if you fail the mandatory role you have to perform after you draw one.”

“The haunt?” Allura questioned, looking up from her character card.

Pidge just waved her hand. “I can explain that when we get there, but the jist is that one of us becomes a traitor and tries to kill everyone else so they can win the game,” Pidge laughed and stacked everyone’s figure on the entrance all.

“Joy,” Hunk commented, looking at his character card again.

“I bet Keith’s the traitor,” Lance joked, elbowing Hunk and looking for confirmation.

Keith rolled his eyes, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms. “We haven’t even started yet, Lance.”

She clapped her hands, drawing everyone’s attention. “We all ready to play?”

And it was like the light snapped off on her consciousness.

Pidge woke up with a crick in her neck and the smell of must and dust. Straightening, she felt the cool wood floor given slightly beneath her fingers when stumbled to stand. Cobwebs spanned the corners of the room and the length of the entrance hall, gossamer thin and glinting in faint moonlight. An eight-legged shiver crawled up Pidge’s spine.

A small moan echoed against the wood-paneled walls, drawing her attention to those gathered around her.

Dressed like a pastor of the catholic church with a cross dangling from his neck, Shiro staggered to his feet, fingers digging into the wall for support. Keith was quick to follow, jumping to his feet and steadying himself on the wall, clutching at his head. Dressed in a classic red t-shirt and jeans with his hair tied in a low ponytail, he looked almost out of place standing next to Shiro. Standing in this house.

Hunk quickly caught Lance, the second he stumbled to his feet, almost collapsing back into a pile of blue skirts. Hunk was wearing a yellow button down, starched with a stiff collar digging into his neck. A large bow decorated his hair in place of his classic headband, pulling back his bangs and accenting his cheek bones.

Nodding, Lance pulled himself from Hunk’s grip, standing tall. belts jingling with each movement of his hips, tied around his waist in colorful tulle. Lance was dressed in an off-shoulder white shirt, large golden hoop earrings and a skirt that danced around his ankles and comfortable sandals. Belts that jingled with each movement of his hips were tied around his waist in colorful tulle.

Allura look uncomfortable in a purple crop top and shorts that exposed the majority of her thigh. With her silver hair pulled back into a high ponytail, the length of her neck was exposed and accented with single strand of pearls that settled into the hollows of her collarbones. Catching the light from the small flashlight clutched in her hand, large pearls dangled from her ears and clicked with each turn of her head.

Pidge glanced down at herself and saw the baggy, green sweatshirt she was dressed in, sleeves dangling over her palms and pocket heavy with the weight of a flashlight. Steadying herself, she rand a hand through her hair, almost knocking off the backward baseball cap in surprise.

“Pidge,” Shiro’s voice was firm, as he glanced around the room. Tracing Shiro’s gaze with the flashlight, Allura illuminated spiderwebs and rodents that scurried away from direct light down the wood-paneled length of the entrance hall.

With a critical glare, Lance stood at the window, searching the darkness and analyzing their surroundings. Flashing lightning shook the house, scattering light around their surroundings. Pidge ran to his side, feeling the brush of his skirts against her bare legs.

The gradual slope of the hill they were perched atop ended at the jagged line of barren trees and fog that consumed any other distinguishable characteristics of the area.

They were in a house on a hill.

Keith pulled at the handle of the large oak doors, but they didn’t budge, not even rattling against the molding. Before anyone could convince him otherwise, he jumped back and took a running start into the door. Stumbled back with a hiss, Keith gripped his shoulder. “We’re locked in,” Keith announced.

They were _locked_ in a house on a hill.

Pidge rotated on the ball of her foot to look each member in the eye. If this was the game, how would they win? And who would betray them?

“So what do we do now?” Shiro asked, looking directly at Pidge. Glancing down the entrance way, she analyzed the old stairs with broken boards shattered in the middle and termites that crawled along the banister.

“We play the game,” Pidge whispered, looking at the door directly behind Allura and Shiro.

Without thought, Keith strode to the door and ripped open. “Keith!” Shiro shouted, worry trembling along the cobwebs and shaking the floorboards. Allura turned and pointed her flashlight into the room as if to glimpse beyond Keith’s shoulders.

Like a flash of light in Pidge’s vision, she blinked and looked around the room as if she was staring through Keith’s eyes. He stepped onto a soft bear pelt that covered the majority of the room, claws intended into the molding floorboards. A small table sat in the corner with an abandoned game of chess, pawns scattered to the ground with cracked faces. Hidden within the pelt of the bear, glass from a broken lamp crunched under his feet.

Across the wooden floor and spray painted into the fur of the rug, there was a giant yellow spiral.

“An event,” Pidge whispered and she felt Keith flinch at her whispered words that seemed to echo between them.

The spiral glowed, eerie and disturbing as Keith stumbled backward. Lifting from the floor with an inaudible pop, the painting disappeared in a puff of amber smoke. A cough resounded through Keith’s chest, suffocating as the smoke consumed the room. Closing his eyes, Keith swatted at the fog, and suddenly Pidge saw nothing but darkness and felt nothing but the tightness of smoke in Keith’s lungs.

Turning on the ball of his foot, Keith grumbled, “So what’s this event, Pidge?” But through the open doorway, he saw nothing. Just empty fog and mist where the entrance hall and his friends used to be. The door slammed shut. Before he could rush to it, he the room jolted under his feet, weightlessness and then the sudden impact of gravity against his bones.

Slowly, he made his way to the door and peered out onto a stone tiled floor. He pulled out the long metal flashlight that had been tucked into his back pocket when he woke. Flicking it on, he scanned it over the room, still standing in the threshold of the doorway. Soot was concentrated in one corner, a small pile with streaks that darkened the crevices between tiles, and abandoned wood strewn around the room.

He took a single step forward, only to be pushed back with an equal force. “What’s happening?”

“You’ve used up your movement for this turn,” Pidge answered, still viewing the scene through Keith’s eyes and the lingering sensations of force on his body and the weight of the flashlight in his sweaty palm.

“Uh, is anyone going to talk about why I can see what Keith’s seeing?” Hunk whimpered, pulling tight on Pidge’s sleeve. “Because I can’t be the only one concerned why I can see through Keith’s eyes and hear his thoughts. Is anyone else? Or is that just me?”

Huffing and crossing her arms, she blinked and her the sight of the looming entrance hall right before her returned. “I can only assume it’s the game’s adaption from the table top version. This way we can still see what the others do and continue to communicate.”

“The game?” Shiro enunciated, pulling on the cross that dangled from his neck.

“Betrayal at House on the Hill,” Lance whispered, looking around the foyer with a newfound horror in the furrow of his brow and gape to his mouth.

“We’ll have to finish the game to leave.” Pidge whispered, not emphisizing how they would probably have to win. The haunt, the creeping betrayal, already settling against her skin and pulling tight.

There was a moment of tense silence as Allura’s flashlight beam trembled slightly across the entrance hall.

“ _Pidge, do you have any idea where I am?_ ” Keith asked, voice hushed and echoing soundless in their minds.

Pidge swallowed, “The basement.” She thrust her hands in the large pocket of her green hoodie. The flashlight was cold in her hands, weighing down the front of the jacket and tightening the collar around her neck. “It’s the most dangerous floor in the house.”

“ _Great_ ,” Keith drawled.

“Well, that’s what you get for charging ahead, Keith,” Lance yelled, flipping his hands up in the air and jingling the metal tassels on his belts. Placing his hands on his hips, he looked around at the group, “So, who goes next?”

“We can’t all go together?” Hunk practically shouted, clutching Pidge’s arm even tighter. Hissing with the pain that skittered up her arm, she yanked out of his bruising grip.

Allura stepped forward, pointing her flashlight at the door across the one Keith had entered, “I’ll go.”

“Allura -” Shiro began, but Allura cut him off by suddenly opening of the door. With a blink, Pidge’s vision was gone. She could feel Allura’s heartbeat in her chest and the way the floor creaked under her sneakers. The flashlight fluttered, light dancing and flickering.

Something dropped against her cheek, splattering, cold and sticky. Instinctively, she wiped at it with her hand, bringing it under the examination of the flickering flashlight. Red painted her fingertips. Carved into the creases of her skin and smeared underneath her nails.

The smell of the room suddenly hit her, rust and copper and rotting visages of death. Jumping back, there was a soft squelch as her feet landed, almost slipping out from underneath her on the slick liquid that coated the floor.

With a smothered squeal, she directed the light to the floor. Blood. There was blood everywhere. Another droplet fell from the ceiling, against the fingers she had clenched to her mouth, threatening to travel between her fingers and paint her lips. It coated the walls in wide streaking coats.

Stumbling backwards, she fled through the doorway. But something stopped her. An invisible barrier that stretched across the threshold kept her confined within this room.

Her face is a wash of terror as Pidge saw the blank expression of her own face through Allura’s eyes. Everyone poised in the entrance hall, shoulders tense and hands digging into their arms at the terrified sensation that singed through the bond.

She had used all of her movement. Trapped in a bloody room until her next turn.

“Allura,” Shiro’s voice was a calm whisper, the foundation of sanity in Allura’s pandemonium. “Calm down.”

“This is nothing you can’t handle, Princess,” Lance spoke encouragement, using a playful nickname as a means to help draw her out of the state the bloody room had taken her too.

She turned back to the room, watching slowly as the image of a yellow longhorn bull skull rose from beneath streaks of blood that coated the floor. It disappeared into a small puff of fog.

Suddenly, there was a thin, intricate dagger in her hand. Delicate with needle like tubes that curved from the handle. On instinct, her hand grabbed the hilt. The needles plunged deep into her veins. Tearing and bruising and draining. She screamed and thrashed, dropping the flashlight from her other hand. Clawing at the dagger that fixated itself to her flesh.

Shiro rushed forward, blinded by Allura’s pulsing vision, but the barrier held true. She was as trapped in there as they were out here, unable to help. “Allura,” his voice was pleading, but she didn’t stop screaming.

She collapsed to the floor, exhausted and trembling.

Their vision returned and without another word, Shiro entered the room, stealing their vision once again and grabbing Allura by the arms as she whimpered slightly. The room hadn’t stopped dripping, coating Shiro’s broad shoulders in blood that only served to darken his black shirt.

While Shiro quietly comforted her, the others pretended they couldn’t hear her soft whispers or feel the way she trembled in Shiro’s arms.

“Pidge,” Shiro’s voice was firm, “Why didn’t I get one of these,” he motioned to Allura’s hand that was bruising with inky colorization and her now permanent forced to grip the dagger, “things?”

Pidge cleared her throat, trying not to focus on Allura’s weary eyes and furrowed brow through Shiro’s vision, “The room has already been explored. So if you want an item, you’ll have to keep going.”

Placing a delicate hand on the dagger, Shiro whispered, “Should I try to take it off her?”

“NO!”

Everyone flinched at Pidge’s strong reaction. She marched forward to the edge of the door, watching herself through Shiro’s eyes as she pointed at him, “That would only hurt her more.”

“What should I do?”

“The only thing we can do,” Pidge mumbled, lead settled in the lining of her heart, “explore.”

Shiro nodded, leading Allura to the only piece of furniture in the room: a lone chair with the wicker back punched out. She nodded a small thank you, and Shiro looked at the nearest door to him, directly in line with the one he had entered through.

With no tremble to his hands, he opened the door. The smell of fresh air was so welcoming after the heavy scent of blood that Shiro stepped outside without thinking, like he was drawn through into the next room. His shoes pressed into soft dirt and newly turned earth.

The small yard was closed in on each side by a black wire fence, jutting high into the sky with pointed tips. The half dozen tombstones were covered in ivory and moss. But several of them looked only days old, fresh dirt and wet sod. Kneeling before one of the tombstones, Shiro brushed away moss, but the name was too eroded to see.

There was a sudden soft plod of footsteps behind him. Jumping to his feet, he turned to see a man, tall and broad shouldered, standing at one of the fresh graves. His overalls and baseball cap were coated with dirt that dripped viscously from a shovel in his fingers. Jaw tensing upon seeing Shiro, the man threateningly raised the shovel from the plod of earth he had been moving.

Without any further warning, he charged. Shiro jumped back ready to defend himself. But the man disappeared, only leaving muddy footprints in his wake. Nothing more.

“Shiro!” Pidge called, screaming through whatever mental connection they had developed, “He’ll be back. Look for -”

But it was too late, the shovel connected with the side of Shiro’s head, sending him reeling into one of the marble tombstones. The pain was pulsating. Deep and aching in his temples and spiraling through their bond.

“ _Shiro!_ ” Keith screamed, and Pidge could feel his helplessness echo in the void of their connection.

Shiro rolled to his feet, unsteady and dizzy with vertigo making Hunk groan beside her. Stumbling, Shiro gritted his teeth and look around for the man who had attacked him, anger and wariness tensing his muscles.

“ _He’s gone_ ,” Shiro mumbled, watching yellow smoke in the form of a spiral dissipate around the grass at his feet. Tenderly, he touched at his wounds, inspecting the deep gash across his chin.

“ _Shiro, you need to do something about that cut_ ,” Keith demanded.

“He’ll be alright,” Pidge mumbled, blinking back into her own body, “No one can die before the haunt.”

Hunk raised a finger, questioning, “Yeah, that’s another thing you mentioned. This haunt thing. What are we going to do when one of -”

“Hunk!” Pidge cut him off, feeling anxiety tighten her lungs and force her fingers to squeeze her temples. There was only so much she could focus on right now, that the team could focus on. And telling the details of the haunt and its unpredictability was not something that was conducive to exploring, not when they were encountering only a fraction of the viciousness the house could inflict. “We can’t worry about that right now. The haunt will happen when it happens.”

“Yeah, but if one of us goes traitor, then -”

“I can’t deal with this right now,” Pidge cut him off, stomping down the entrance hall and up the grand staircase. Creaking under each stomp of her foot, it threatened to give out underneath her. She couldn’t think about one of them becoming a traitor. In the only version of the game she played, it was the traitor’s goal to kill everyone. ‘Revenge’ the traitor’s tome had described. That they had all been dragged their so the traitor could play out their sick game of revenge.

As a board game, it was amazing to develop strategies to outthink the traitor and ensure their victory. It was everything she excelled at. But she didn’t want to think about how the haunt could change the people she would give her life for. Would revenge consume them? Would the game turn them into something she would never be able to recognize, alien and dangerous?

Would there be no return?

“Pidge!” Lance tried to run after her, jangling at the hip, but he was stopped at the bottom of the stairs only able to watch her ascend before her vision took control of everyone.

Standing on the landing of the staircase, she examined the doors on each wall before choosing one at random. The door squeaked when it opened. The room was short, divided in half by a large stone wall with a metal door in the middle.

She walked forward, touching a hand to the cool metal. If the large spinning handle in the middle was evidence enough, a small dial for the combination sat on the right. “I found the vault,” Pidge whispered, brushing her fingers over the dial. A small flicker of hope bounced in her chest.

“ _What does that mean exactly?_ ” Shiro asked, suspicious of every door in this house after what had happened to Allura and the cut that scissored along his jaw.

“It means if I can open it, I’ll get two items.” Pidge spoke, leaning her ear against the door and closing her eyes.

“ _Is that such a great idea_ ,” Lance questioned, voice softening as he continued “ _I mean after what happened to Allura?_ ”

Before she could even focus on the vault, the yellow spiral half hidden by the stone wall evaporated into a fog that clung to her ankles. With the rise of the smoke, it started like a whisper. Quiet and creeping along the ground. But it escalated as the smoke dispersed, ending in a soul-rending shriek that cut through the eerie silence of the house.

Grasping at her ears, Pidge stumbled back, flashlight clattering to the ground. Her eyes blurred at the strength of the sound, but it slowly faded. Cut off in a half gurgle. Her vision swam with pain that rang in her ears.

“Is everyone okay?”

“ _Just dandy_ ,” Lance groaned.

“ _Yeah_ ,” Keith bit out.

Hunk mumbled slightly as if he was trying to fight off a chill, “ _Yes. Yep. Just fine._ ”

“ _I’m okay_ ,” Shiro answered.

And they all waited for Allura. Her response was slow, a tiny exhale of air, weak and fragile, “ _I’m alright. Just - just a little surprised_.”

Pidge nodded and turned her attention back to the vault door, ignoring any warnings her team suggested. She knew this game, and she knew that the majority of the items were more helpful than hurtful.

Her ears still rang, and it was difficult to focus on the quiet ticking of the door. Her knees complained at her crouched position, aching and sore. The combination slipped from her fingers. With a sigh, she pulled back. Rolling out her neck and cracked her fingers, she was determined to try again and succeed. But the dial refused to turn.

“ _I think your turn is over_ ,” Lance answered, walking up the stairs and stealing Pidge’s vision. He followed her up the stairs, metal belts jingling with each step. She saw herself through his eyes, crouched by the large metal door, swallowed up the enormous green hoodie.

Sighing, he chose the door directly across from the stairs. With a jolting push, it creaked open to show a tiny bedroom with a bed on either side, pressed close to the walls. Clothes were strewn around, tumbling from a broken closet. Lance planted his hands on his hips with an exasperated sigh.

“ _Thankfully not the most creepy room in this house_ ,” Lance commented, dragging a sandaled foot over the yellow painting of a crow on the floor. “ _What does this symbol mean?_ ”

And before Pidge could answer, the symbol disappeared in a puff of smoke. Coughing, he frantically waved a hand in front of his face, the smoke cloying and heavy in the air, thick with the scent of mold. When the air had cleared enough for him to open his eyes, he saw a small glass box in the middle of the floor. A glowing yellow crystal ball sat in the center yellow fog drifting around it.

He slowly stepped across the room to it. On top of the box were six yellowed die like they were carved of old bone. Lance picked up one, examining its sides and heavy weight. Two sides were blank, two were one, and the final two had two dots.

“ _What’s this supposed to mean?_ ”

“You need to make a haunt roll,” Pidge breathed, throat tightening. It was like a slap in the face unlike any other aspect of the game, brunt and sudden and stinging. The first mention of the haunt, the first true threat of betrayal.

“ _Haunt roll?_ ”

“ _Maybe you should explain this haunt thing now, Pidge?_ ” Hunk pleaded, but she shook off his comment.

She ground her teeth, focusing on the die casually rolling around Lance’s palm. “If you fail to get at least a one, the haunt will begin.”

“ _And someone will turn traitor_ ,” Lance’s voice wasn’t a question, understanding the basics of the haunt, grasping on to Pidge’s minor explanations. Scooping up the rest of the dice as if weighing them for judgement, he rolled them atop the glass box. They bounced and landed.

Six.

The glass shattered and the dice fell harmlessly to the floor. “ _So I guess I passed?_ ” Lance questioned, picking up the crystal ball. Heavy and cool in his hand, a thin tendril of yellow smoke curled in the center of the glass as if winking and promising the future. He set it against his hip after a quick examination, jingling the belts at his waist, “ _Keith better not get one of these haunt roll things, because the dropout will definitely fail_.”

“ _Why don’t you come to the basement and find out, Lance?_ ” Keith ground out, stepping against the invisible barrier of his room and sending reverberations through the bond.

Pidge’s vision snapped back to the room she was in with dizzying force.

“ _Does this mean it’s my turn?_ ” Hunk whispered tentatively against their mental bond.

“ _You’re the only one left, big guy_ ,” Keith commented flippantly.

Shiro growled a small warning, “ _Keith_ ,” and Keith huffed a sigh in response.

Hunk took a single step forward, and Pidge’s vision vanished to look down the long stretch of the entrance hall. She could feel the way Hunk licked his dry lips and the way his breaths beat faster in his chest. Grabbing the flashlight at his feet, he finally moved from the spot where he woke at the start of the game. The beam of light trembled slightly in his hands as he walked to the door next to the one Keith had entered.

His hand shook as he grasped the door. And just held onto the knob. And held on. And waited. And -

“ _Hunk_ ,” Shiro began, and Hunk jumped at the sudden noise twisting the knob and charging forward. His feet slipped out from underneath him.

Suddenly, he was sliding, down and down and down with no control over his body or the way his shirt rode up and his skin skidded against metal. He was airborne for a moment before his feet hit the ground. A small puff of soot rose up with his impact. With a cough, his knees gave out. Hands and feet colliding with the ground, Hunk gazed up at where he had come.

It was a straight slide down to the basement, “ _What the hell_ ,” Hunk whispered, standing up on shaky legs.

“The coal chute,” Pidge mumbled, watching Hunk take in the musty basement. Keith stood at the edge of his room, muscles tensed and ready. “It takes you directly to the basement.”

“ _The basement_ ,” Hunk breathed, swallowing thickly, “ _You mean the scariest part of the house?_ ” He looked around the room at the closed doors and the scurrying rodents, hands twitching around the small flashlight in his hand, “ _The floor with no visible exit? Does this mean that Keith and I need to explore the basement to get out? I can’t get out with exploring the scariest part of the house?_ ”

Hunk turned on his heel and looked up the coal shoot. “ _With a boost from Keith, I could try to climb up the shoot and -_ ”

“ _Hunk_ ,” Allura’s voice was weary, “ _Please explore a room_.”

“ _Explore?_ ” His voice was a squeak.

“ _Your turn’s not over, buddy_ ,” Lance commented in as comforting tone as possible.

“ _So what do I do? Where do I go?_ ” Hunk looked around the room at such a dizzying rate, Pidge thought she was going to be sick.

Keith huffed, crossing his arms in Hunk’s vision, “ _Just choose a damn door, Hunk_.”

Hunk stumbled to the nearest door, grabbed the handle, closed his eyes, and stepped through. The scent of char saturated the room, heavy in the musty air of the basement. Hunk’s shoes clicked against tiled floor. One eye peeked open, and he visibly relaxed, “ _Oh, it’s just the kitchen. There’s nothing terrifying about a kitchen, even in this creepy house_.”

Hunk swept his flashlight over the room, the only light in the dark basement. In the far corner, there were several broken chairs and a wobbly table, one leg shattered and hanging loosely from rusty nails. The fridge was old and the door hung on it’s hinges exposing rotting food and rodents feasting. Hunk jumped back.

The light drifted to the floor illuminating the large shape of a yellow crow.

“Omen,” Pidge breathed as the painting dispersed into fog that billowed around a glass case that seemed to solidify from the smoke in the center of the room.

A hand slammed against the glass from the inside, clawing and desperate. Hunk screamed and ran to the door, only to be held back. “ _There’s someone in there! There’s someone there!! Let me leave!_ ” Hunk shrieked, slamming on the invisible barrier in the threshold of the door.

“ _Hunk, calm down. It won’t hurt you, right Pidge?_ ” Shiro placated, looking to Pidge for confirmation. Bracing his back against the door, Hunk turned the flashlight back to the case in the middle of the room. Light settled on the weary features of a young girl with hair hanging in greasy tendrils down her face and tangled in large hoop earrings. She sprinted to the edge of the glass case, feet slipping over the tiles and chains clanking around her ankles. Pressed against tightly into the corner, she cowered behind her hands, hiding herself from Hunk’s gaze.

It was a young girl. Trapped. Alone.

Hunk stepped forward, palms sweating, but fear fading slightly.

“ _It’s okay. I won’t hurt you_ ,” Hunk stated, walking forward.

“ _Hunk_ ,” Lance warned, but Pidge shushed him.

Hunk placed a hand against the glass, searching through the fog to meet the girl’s gaze. Tilting her head to the side, she watched him with curious eyes. Her hands relaxed, releasing the fabric of the simple shift dress she wore, the white hem dirty and chewed up.

Without hesitation, Hunk picked up the dice and rolled them.

Three.

The glass shattered around the girl and the dice fell like hail. Hunk was crouching before her, “ _Are you alright? You’re safe now_.”

She jumped forward, hands extended.

“ _Hunk!_ ” Lance screamed, terrified and warning.

The girls hands slipped around Hunk’s neck. She nuzzled her face against his shoulder with a small sigh. Her whisper was small, “ _Thank you_.”

And Pidge’s vision was her own again.

“Hunk, what’s going on?” she asked, looking back to the vault, wanting anything other than to be trapped in this room and watch her friends explore a dangerous house with only a flashlight to guide them.

“ _Did the girl say anything about how to get out of the house?_ ” Shiro asked, the hope so so evident in his tone.

“ _No_ ,” Hunk’s tone was a slight, protective growl, but he shook it off. “ _She hasn’t said anything yet. Hasn’t stopped crying either_.”

Keith took a step forward without saying a word and Pidge had to catch herself on the wall. The whiplash from transitioning to Keith’s vision so quickly tore against her mind. Stepping out of the game room, Keith strode through the basement landing.

Pidge could see Hunk crouched in the dingy kitchen, girl wrapped around his neck and nuzzling her oily hair into his chest. Hunk sighed a bit as he gently patted her back to calm her. Anxiety still gnawed on Pidge’s bones, settling deep into the marrow and winding in sinew, because it seemed like this young girl was the only harmless thing they would find in this haunted house.


	2. Image in the Mirror

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The art for this fic was done by the fabulous Lyrikin!!! She is so amazing!!
> 
> I hope you all enjoy!
> 
> ~~~~ as a small heads up, this is the chapter where the drowning tag comes into play. you can skip it from "Something slithered around Keith's ankle" and start reading again at "After pulling Keith from the water" ~~~~

Turning to the door nearest to him, Keith contemplated, “ _Logically one of these should lead to the stairs_.” He paused in front of the door, and Pidge could feel the anticipation in his fingers, the small tremble he attempted to hide in bold movements as he grabbed the doorknob.

“ _There’s nothing logical about this house, mullet_ ,” Lance ground out. “ _The sooner you get that through your head, the sooner we all get to leave_.”

Keith’s lips parted to mumble something else, when the door creaked open under his fingers like the wind had caught it. With a tentative step, he stepped through the threshold, flashlight dancing across the room and catching the sight of a thin bridge. Broken with rotting planks that dangled between two fraying ropes.

Standing as close to the edge as he dared, he pointed the beam of light down. The darkness consumed it before it could reach the bottom.

“ _I’m going to cross_ ,” Keith announced, shoving the flashlight in the belt of his pants, so that he at least had a little light in the darkened room while his hands reached for the ropes.

“ _Keith_ ,” Shiro’s voice was reedy and thin, “ _please, just explore another room. It’s too big of a risk to cross the bridge_.”

Allura’s voice was on the verge of panic, “ _Keith, please. Please don’t do this. I can’t watch you do this to yourself_.”

“ _What are you trying to prove?!_ ” Lance shouted, even making Keith cringe as he grabbed at the rope handles.

“ _There has to be something important over there. Why else would this be here?_ ” Keith motioned across the chasm, a gaping maw between the small slivers of flooring. A small gust of wind from the darkness tickled the bottom of his t-shirt and made his hair stand on end, carrying the scent of dank stagnant air.

“ _Or something so terrifying they needed to hide across an uncrossable bridge_ ,” Hunk whispered.

Pidge clenched her hands in the thick material of her jacket, grounding her, “Lance was right, nothing about this house is logical.” Lance interrupted with a small victorious huff. “Anything could be on the other side of the chasm. I don’t know if it’s worth the risk, Keith.”

Keith’s grip tightened on the ropes, taking a small step closer to the edge. A small piece of the stone flooring skittered over the edge. Dropping and dropping and dropping, and never seeming to land.

“ _I have to try_ ,” he announced before placing his first foot on the wooden beam. Pidge closed her eyes, squeezing them tight against the vision and vertigo that swam in Keith’s head. Not wanting to feel the roughness of the rope on his fingers. Or the way that the wind gusted up Keith’s pant legs, threatening to pull him one way or another. Or the way the bridge swayed dangerously with every step. Or the feeling of wood biting into his calf when one of the beams broke and the bubbling fear that burst into flame. Or the scream that Allura let out, followed by the tiny whimpers of “ _Please let it stop_ ,” that echoed through their bond.

Keith jumped over the last few beams and landed on the opposite side of the stone floor. Sweating and breathing heavy, his hands rested on his thighs as he struggled hide the swell of relief that weakened his knees.

Without another word, he yanked open the door, ignoring the hitch to his breathing and the recovery they were all searching for. Stepping inside, he pulled the flashlight from his waistband and scanned the room. Blood was painted across the room in the shape of a pentagram, dried into the cracks of the stone. The edges almost touched the walls, blotchy with the touch of fingerprints. At the corners of the star were burned down candles, almost puddles of creamy wax. Keith bent down and wiped two fingers over it.

“ _Paint_ ,” Keith whispered, rolling his fingers together to feel the dry paint pull from his skin.

A faint hiss of smoke, drew Keith’s flashlight to the center of the room. The large painting of a yellow crow peeled from the floor in thin tendrils of fog, and quickly settled in the room, deep yellow and cloying. It stung in his lungs, clawing and tearing.

But it didn’t fade.

The glass box sat in the center with bone yellow dice perfectly stacked in the middle.

“ _Pidge, what’s happening?_ ” Keith coughed, “ _Why isn’t the smoke fading?_ ”

A low growl vibrated through the fog. Jumping back, Keith spun the light around the room, searching for the origin of the noise. The sound of claws scraping against stone. A solitary footstep. But the flashlight only reflected yellow fog.

The scent of death rose from the shifting smoke.

Keith stumbled backward, gripping the metal flashlight in both hands as a form of weapon.

Another clawing step scratched against the stone, but from the other direction. Gaze darting there, he squinted through the fog, searching with hands tightening. A small step forward.

Pain lanced through his leg, mauling and digging and tearing flesh to strands of skin and muscle. Keith screamed, agony searing his nerves. The flashlight clattered to the ground, a beacon in the yellow fog. Falling to his knees, he gripped as his leg, blood seeping between his fingers and flesh like flaps of wet cloth. The pain thundered through his mind.

“ _Keith!_ ” Shiro screamed.

“Roll the dice, Keith!” Pidge shrieked over the dulled pain echoing in her calf that threatened devoured her leg and mind.

With a grunted whimper, Keith stumbled to his feet. Vision tunneled to only the bone dice and the glass case. Not the whispering sound of clawing footsteps behind him. His breath was fast and a single hand reached out for the glass case.

Another low, warning growl.

His head snapped around at the sound, but his feet never stopped moving, staggering over the stone. The scent of rot mixed with the blood soaking into Keith’s pants and the sulfur of the smoke.

Every sound was an echo in Keith’s mind, the wheeze of his breath and the tentative drag of claws against the stone.

A lightning slash of pain across his back like whips of fire that ate through his skin and nerves, burning and searing and all Pidge could hear was screaming. A shattered scream that reverberated through the bond with waves of agony, overwhelming and threatening to drown him in this cloying fog.

His sobs were weak as his hands flailed. There was nothing but the pain and the cool press of the glass against his cheek.

With a fumbling hand, he grabbed as many dice as he could, throwing them against the top of the case.

The glass shattered around him, head bouncing off the floor. The dice clattered against his cheek before landing in the center of the pentagram circle where Keith had dragged himself, smearing his blood over the white paint. A small moan was his only exhale as the smoke dissipated.

He’d made it.

Pidge’s vision returned to the vault, looming and not nearly as terrifying as the clinging smoke and presence of another in the basement.

Shiro’s voice was as calm as possible, biting through the mental bond, “ _Keith, we can’t see through your eyes anymore. Please let us know you’re okay_.”

“ _I’m okay_ ,” Keith groaned. “ _Using my belt as a tourniquet on my calf. Seems like the scratches on my back aren’t that bad_.”

There was a small whimper through the bond. Allura had been quiet since her desperate screams. “ _Never again, Keith_ ,” she whispered, voice threadbare and exhausted.

“ _I vote that Keith doesn’t get to make any more executive decisions_ ,” Lance quipped to a small chorus of agreement.

There was silence, uneasy and tense. The floor creaked under Pidge’s feet as she sat, cross legged and leaning against the vault door. Saving her strength for when she would need it.

“ _Allura_ ,” Lance’s voice was a quiet push in the darkness of their minds.

And without another word, Allura stumbled out of the bloody room, stealing all of their vision. The flashlight was unsteady in her non-dominant hand, her dominant hand forced to grab the dagger with it’s needles plunging into her veins. Dried blood festered around the wounds.

Her breathing was heavy as she stood in the entrance hall, flashlight beam dancing around the room. It settled on the door that Keith had originally gone through off of the entrance hall, closed and unsuspicious looking. Walking confidently to the door, her fingers stopped inches from the handle, trembling slightly.

“ _What do you think is beyond the door?_ ” she whispered.

“It could be anything,” Pidge admitted, feeling Allura’s fear rise up in her throat, so constricting it was hard to breathe, let alone think.

There was a small creak behind her and Allura jumped, light frantically searching the dark of the house. “ _What if it’s an animal like Keith’s? Or - or what if it’s another man like the one who attacked Shiro? Or whatever the hell this thing is?_ ” Allura slashed the dagger through the air with a rising panic.

“ _Allura, just explore a goddamn room!_ ” Keith snapped, anger rising and frothing at the mouth.

“ _But, what if -_ ”

“ _We won’t get out of here if we aren’t willing to take risks_ ,” Keith’s tone was reprimanding with a bite of pain.

Lance huffed in return, “You’re one to talk, Keith.”

“ _We shouldn’t be taking unnecessary risks_ ,” Shiro announced, agreeing with both Lance and Keith’s arguments as Allura’s fingers finally settled on the doorknob.

“ _But exploring is a risk we need to take_ ,” Keith bit back.

“I hate to agree with Keith, but --” Pidge couldn’t finish her sentence before Allura thrust open the door, closing her eyes and charging in.

Slowly, she cracked her eyes open. The relief that overcame Allura made her knees go weak, a dizzying feeling that reached through the bond and shook Pidge’s sense of balance. Falling to the clumped rug that ran down the center of the room between the rotting pews, she sighed a stifled sob. She tilted her head up, examining the five large stained glass windows that shown soft sunlight over the broken altar.

“ _A chapel_ ,” Allura breathed, standing once again. With each step forward, a little more yellow smoke rose from the swirl painted across the floor. Twining around her ankles, traveling up the length of her body, and whispering in her ears.

“ _I’m under the floor_ ,” the voice cooed, a siren in the deep, cooing and persuasive. A chill traversed Allura’s back like the a gentle hum of fingernails tracing over flesh. “ _Buried under the floor_.” It exhaled once. And the smoke dissipated.

Allura immediately dropped to her knees again, throwing the rotting carpet to the side and frantically pulling at the seams of the stone floor. Nails chipped and tore from her fingers. Blood coated the ground in frantic streaks from desperate fingers. She stabbed the dagger into the cracks between the stones, the needles digging deeper into her flesh and dripping fresh drops of blood onto the stone.

“ _Allura!_ ” Shiro shouted, but she couldn’t hear any of them over the echoes of the voice. Eyes focused solely on loosening the stones, strange murmurs buzzing from her lips.

“ _Pidge, what do we do?_ ” Hunk whinced at the pangs of pain reberating through all of their fingertips.

Pidge grasped at her head, fingers digging under the suddenly too tight baseball cap, “I don’t know if there is anything we can do.”

Allura lost three fingernails in her frantic search before a single stone rocked loose. Her hands finally slowed, pulling the stone free, prying it up with the end of the dagger. It was heavy and threatened to crush her fingers as she set it down.

There was a small cloth bundle in the dirt of the old foundation.

Slowly pulling it out, she pausing before unwrapping the sack at the sound of Lance’s voice, “ _Pidge, should she open that. It won’t hurt her like last time right?_ ” And the thought seemed to give Allura pause.

“It shouldn’t,” Pidge admitted, hating how unsure and unsteady her voice sounded.

The burlap drifted back into the hole. It was a small cosmetic like ceramic jar with engravings, “ _It’s healing salve_ ,” Allura answered before anyone else could decipher the language through her eyes. Untwisting the cap, she finally felt the blinding pain and agony in the tips of her fingers and the gouged veins of her right hand.

The salve was green and smelt vile as Allura dipped one finger, rubbing the paste on her nail beds and watching the bleeding stop and feeling the pain ebb. She tried to rub the salve on the aching injection sights on her right hand, but the soft flow of blood didn’t dwindle.

Allura closed her eyes, and Pidge was finally in her own body, devoid of the pangs of pain Allura was experiencing. “ _Is there anyway Keith could use some of the healing salve?_ ”

“Not unless you’re willing to go downstairs,” Pidge commented. Even though Pidge couldn’t see through Allura’s eyes anymore she could still feel her recoil at the thought. “But we probably shouldn’t have three people trapped in the basement when we haven’t found the stairs.”

“ _It’s alright, Allura. We’ll figure it out_ ,” Shiro placated.

“ _And Keith should suffer for his stupidity_ ,” Lance grumbled and Pidge could heard the jingle of his skirts through the open doorway.

“ _Hey_ ,” Keith growled, “ _I was just trying to do the best for the team by exploring_.”

“,” Lance snarled. Pidge rose to her feet, trying to fight off the rising headache that was a slow pound in her temples, “ _Just admit it! You were being selfish and trying to show off like you always -_ ”

“ _Who’s the show off? You’re the one who is always challenging me and everything -_ ”

“ _Boys!_ ” Shiro growled, stepping out of the graveyard and into the bloody room that dripped fresh blood onto his still damp shoulders, “ _This is_ not _the time!_ ”

Shiro looked through the doorways to see Allura still crouching by the stone she had upturned. Her silver ponytail was matted with drying blood and coated strands that had fallen loose, sticking to her cheeks. “ _Do you need help, Allura?_ ”

“ _No_ ,” her voice was more steady than it had been earlier, “ _Go explore. I’m okay here_.”

Shiro nodded and looked to the door to his left. With caution but no hesitation, Shiro opened the door. The knob was cold in his left palm, the right holding up the flashlight to peer into the new room.

A soft breeze blew over his skin, the air fresh compared to the stagnant and moldy stench that had seeped into the walls of the house. The room was a garden, lush and overgrown with the lack of pruning and care. Each side of the garden was picketed in a wrought-iron fence that jutted toward the sky with gleaming points. A small path lined with white stones traversed the overgrown flowers and led to the door set in a brick wall with vines covering it.

Smoke from a yellow spiral rose and mingled with the grass. Looked to the right at the soft sound of laughter, Shiro saw two kids playing by a broken bird bath. One was kneeling on the ground in front of a marble bench, the other sat straddling it, spinning a wooden top in his fingers.

“ _Are you alright?_ ” Shiro called, running forward without thought.

“ _Shiro, no!_ ” Keith cried, but Shiro didn’t seem to hear any of their warnings.

“ _You have to get out of this house_ ,” Shiro instructed, placing his hands on his knees and looking at the boys. But they didn’t seem to pay him any mind.

The boy on the marble bench, played with the hem of his shorts, handing the boy kneeling on the ground the top, “Would you like a turn, Jonah?” He smiled as long strands of black hair fell across his gaze. The words seem to echo throughout the house, and not through the mental bond they shared.

Shiro took a step back, aware of the look in Jonah’s eyes when he tilted his head up, bangs falling from his face. “No,” Jonah whispered, standing and wiping the dirt off his knees. Shiro stepped back. “I want all the turns.”

Jonah grabbed the wooden top from the boy’s fingers and hit him over the head. The boy cried out, falling to the moist earth with a wail. Laughing, Jonah leapt over the bench and smashing the boy in the face again with the sickening crunch of bone.

A protective snarl echoed from Shiro’s throat as he jumped forward. But he couldn’t touch the boys. Something like the invisible barrier that barricaded them in their rooms held him back. Made him watch, made them all watch, as Jonah beat the boy, cackling with a huge smile on his face.

The other boy cowered, struggling to fight back with thin arms and flailing legs as the blood dripped down his face and into his eyes. He cried out, screaming and thrashing, but Jonah held him down with his knees digging into arms and joints and flesh.

The boy’s gaze fell on Shiros, eyes wide and almost violet in the moonlight, “Please. Help me.”

Shiro beat on the barrier, screaming with bruised fists. Fruitless. Futile.

Finally, the boy’s legs unseated Jonah’s perch on top of him. Struggling to his feet, he stumbled desperately towards Shiro with dirty fingers and tears smearing the blood on his cheeks. But Jonah grabbed the boy by the collar before he could take three steps. And with a wicked, victorious smile, he slammed the top into his temple. The boy went limp in Jonah’s grasp. Releasing his grip, Jonah turned to the bench to spin the top. Blood splattered across the marble with the twist of the top.

Shiro’s eyes watched the boy, hyper-focused to see the slight rise of his chest. But there was only stillness. The top fell, momentum ended and the vision disappeared, leaving muddy footprints, blood, and nothing more.

Shiro kneeled in the overgrown garden, placing tentative fingers in the indentation of the boy, blood splattered on white flower petals.

“ _I couldn’t save him_ ,” Shiro mumbled, hollow.

“It was just an event, Shiro,” Pidge attempted to sooth him, but her voice was anything but, shaking and tentative. Even she could admit how disturbing the image was, and for someone like Shiro who was like everyone’s big brother, the protector, the defender, being made to watch that was the worst kind of torture. “It wasn’t real.”

“ _There was nothing you could’ve done_ ,” Lance commented, voice softer than Pidge’s. Lance, always the comforter, the emotional support.

“ _I couldn’t save him _,” Shiro mumbled, digging his fingers into the dirt, softened by spilled blood.__

“ _It was just an illusion_ ,” Keith attempted to comfort, but there was doubt in his voice when Shiro picked one of the blood-splattered flowers. “ _So you don’t need to worry, Shiro_.”

Lance scoffed, “ _Yeah, just an illusion_.” Pidge could practically feel the derision in Lance’s tone, picturing the way he rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, “ _Because it was just an illusion that beat your ass last turn or pummeled Shiro with a shovel. Nothing in this house is something to brush off, Keith!_ ”

“ _It could’ve been!_ ” Keith growled back, and Pidge can feel their irritation humming in her mind, pounding her temples. And like a whisper, a gentle exhale of air across her mind, she heard Keith’s mumbled admission, “ _I was just trying to be helpful_.”

“ _Yeah, you were really helpful_.”

“ _Are you seriously -_ ”

“Shut up!” Pidge screamed, slamming a hand onto the vault, commandeering their vision. “I can’t think with you fuckers in my head,” she ground out, clenching her jaw. Sighing, she placed her ear against the vault door, and thankful that the ringing in her ears had died some. Her hand moved slowly listening for the clicks.

There was a large click as the door unlocked under her fingers. She twisted open the handle to peer inside.

“ _Way to go_ ,” Hunk cheered.

“ _Nice Pidge!_ ” Shiro complimented.

Keith, Lance, and Allura stayed quiet as Pidge stepped into the room. Several chests and random coins were strew around the floor. In the center of the floor were two painted animal skulls, stark in contrast under the light of her flashlight. Two items. In a flash of smoke, they disappeared leaving two items that immediately drew her attention.

One was a worn leather bag with the symbol for medicine embroidered on the side, stained and puckering the fabric. “The medical kit,” Pidge breathed, kneeling beside it to peer inside at the contents: several rolls of bandages, a dirty needle and some thread, and a small vial of antiseptic.

Like the scratch of fingernails down the crevices in her mind, her attention was drawn to a pile of three dice. They were cracked, black wood like the ebony of piano keys, stolen from the marrow of trees. Rolling one in the palm of her hand, she carefully examined the six faces. Carved like the haunt dice, the highest number was two and the lowest was zero.

“The dark dice,” Pidge whispered, more reverent than she intended.

She picked them all up, shaking them in her hand. A small voice whispered through the bond, “ _Are you feeling lucky?_ ” Eerie and almost silent and nothing like the familiar voices of her friends.

“ _Pidge_ ,” Lance warned, “ _Do you even know what those things do?_ ”

“ _Yeah, the are honestly giving me the creeps_ ,” Hunk admitted.

“If I remember correctly,” Pidge tried to think back to the games she had played, the scattered memories in Matt’s friend’s basement of screaming and laughter and strategizing. Unfortunately, she had only played this game a couple of times and wasn’t as familiar with all of the items, “There are awesome benefits from rolling high numbers.”

The dice seemed to quiver in her hands with a faint heartbeat, tempting her to roll them, to decide their fate. To leave it all up to chance.

“ _And if you roll low?_ ” Allura asked, voice tinged with trepidation.

“I don’t know,” She admitted. Her fingers clasped tightly around the dice, and she started shaking them in her hand. The clacked against each other with muffled pops of splintering wood.

“ _Pidge_ ,” Shiro warned, worrying tinging his voice.

But Pidge had already released the dice to the floor, watching them fall.

Zero.

Two.

And the last die spun on its corner. Falling to face a one.

With a sudden jerk of vertigo, she was in the upper landing standing by the stairs and looking at Lance standing in the servant’s quarters, between two beds with his arms crossed.

“Okay,” Pidge breathed, “At least we know that three isn’t anything necessarily bad.”

Hunk’s relief was palpable through the bond. Lance reached out and grabbed at his skirt, holding it out to the sides. He spun a little, eyes glassy and not in focus.

“ _Hey, I actually look pretty good in this_ ,” Lance laughed, a little forced as if trying to lighten the mood of this oppressive house.

“ _Not the time, Lance_.” Keith growled. Scoffing under his breath, not realizing anyone could still hear, “ _And he says I’m the show off_.”

“ _Keith_ ,” Shiro reprimanded.

Pidge attempted to ignore them all, stepping to the side of the stairs, hand trailing along the banister. She thrust the dice into the pocket of her hoodie, and the medical kit was a heavy weight on the crook of her elbow. Illuminating another closed door in the beam of her flashlight, she strode around the banister of the stairs.

Without further hesitation, she opened the door. The flashlight danced across tables filled with cracked beakers and test tubes. Areas of the tiled floor were sticky against the bottoms of her sneakers. A gelatinous puddle adhering itself to the slope of the floor and the drain in the center of the room.

“ _A research lab_ ,” Hunk commented, looking through Pidge’s eyes.

The design of a yellow spiral pulled from the ground in long tendrils of smoke, gently brushing by a small doll on the counter. It had glassy eyes and removable organs to demonstrate the anatomy and skeletal structure.

A small yellow spear, solidifying from the smoke, was gripped in its hand, tightened and forceful.

Pidge took a step forward, feeling the dissipating smoke curl around her ankles. The light highlighted the porcelain quality to the doll’s face, glinting off the round, rosy cheeks and the missing liver and heart that were scattered on the table. Its head turned to look Pidge directly in the eyes.

It jumped from the table, spear raised. With a high pitched scream, Pidge jumping backward, flashlight held like a weapon at her chest. The doll landed several feet away from her, spear cracking the tile.

There were a cacophony of voices in her mind, directing her and telling her what to do. But she couldn’t think beyond the tracking gaze of the doll.

It snapped its gaze from the floor, watching her over its shoulder. Stepping slowly behind the thing, she watched its head turn around completely to track her with its gaze. It straightened with jerky movements, pulling the spear out of the ground, intestines falling to the floor with a plastic clatter.

She watched it, holding the flashlight as a makeshift weapon, wishing for the first time that she had Allura’s dagger - even if it was embedded in her hand. Grinding her teeth, she prepared for the attack. She knew that she couldn’t leave the room, and it wasn’t as if she could simply roll dice and banish the creature back to whatever plane of hell it had been summoned from.

Its body turned to face her, eyes still fixated. With a wicked gleam, it charged. She stumbled to the side, not expecting the doll to have such agility. Her knees smacked the ground with a sickening crack. She didn’t even have time to whimper, lurching to her feet, unwilling to be defenseless on her hands and knees.

The doll didn’t stop its onslaught.

She could hear Keith’s instructions on how to dodge and attack, the only echo of words in her racing mind. But she couldn’t spare a breath to respond or a even moment to think over her next moves. Completely on the defensive.

She tripped over the drain in the middle of the floor, careening off balance, and watched the doll pounce.

In a moment of panic, she held the medical kit up as a shield, unable to dodge the attack. The force of the impact threw her across the room. Pain ricocheted up her back. The corner of the table digging in deep, against her spine, grinding bones and puncturing blood vessels. Her scream was cut off as all of the air was punched out of her lungs.

She clattered to the ground, flashlight spinning away. It illuminated the doll and its eerily smiling face.

“Let’s play again sometime,” it whispered before it disappeared in a flash of smoke.

“ _Pidge_ ,” Shiro called, panicked, “ _Pidge, we can’t see anything anymore. Please tell us you’re alright_.”

Groaning, she leaned forward, attempting to catch her breath against the flare of pain along her ribs with each inhale. With tentative fingers, she felt along her back, only feeling the tenderness of her bruise that cramped her muscles with each movement. “I’m okay,” she whispered.

“ _Thank the Ancients_ ,” Allura sighed, “ _Pidge, I can come and give you this salve on my next turn if you need it_.”

She sat on the floor, shifting slightly and grabbing at the flashlight. Quickly, she scanned the room, looking for any returning sign of the doll. Crawling backward until her back pressed up against the wall, she finally breathed a sharp sigh of relief.

“No, it’s okay. Save it for Shiro or Keith.”

“ _Do you need me to come to you, Pidge?_ ” Lance asked, stepping forward and commandeering her vision with a gasp.

“No, no. Go ahead and explore, Lance.” She waved him off mentally.

He nodded, focusing on the door on the opposite wall of the one he entered. With a steadying breath, he walked forward and opened it. The air was muggy, humid and cloying as it drawled against his skin.

The flashlight glinted against the glossy plants that lined the walls. Some were thriving with thick vines that traveled the floor, while others were withered husks. Glass crunched under his feet as he stepped forward. The glass ceiling of the conservatory held shattered planes that threatened to rain upon him.

A fog of yellow smoke lifted from the painted spiral on the floor.

“ _Be careful_ ,” Hunk whispered, betraying all of their anxiety of what would come of this.

A mirror with an elaborate, golden yellow frame clattered to the ground in the center of the room. Lance took careful steps over to it, shining the light down. He saw himself pace around on the other side of the mirror. His white, off-the-shoulder shirt was ripped and bloody. His hair was matted to his head with blood and one of the belts was wrapped around his head to stop to the bleeding. There was a determined set to his mouth and panic in his reflections eyes.

Lance jumped back, the crystal ball dropping from under his arm and shattering to pieces under his feet. He screamed pointing at the mirror, “ _Holy crow! That’s me_.” The flashlight shook as Lance carefully stepped back over to the mirror.

His frightened reflection caught his eyes, running up to his side of the mirror, breath threatening to fog the glass. The other Lance picked up a rock from the ground and scratched into the mirror.

#### 

THIS WILL HELP

Lance’s reflection pulled a revolver from the waistband of his skirts, jingling the single belt still wrapped around. He quickly looked over his shoulder before shoving the gun through the mirror. The glass rippled like mercury around the other Lance’s blood stained fingers.

Lance hesitated, fingers tightening in his skirts as he watched the look of panic grow on his reflection’s face. Gritting his teeth, Lance reached forward and snatched the handgun. His reflection smiled before the mirror shattered, yellow frame remaining in the center of the room.

With an unnerving ease, Lance pushed open the cylinder, counting six golden bullets before spinning the cylinder and clicking it back into place. “ _Six bullets_ ,” he whispered, his tone unnaturally tight.

Lance sighed and sat on the floor by the mirror, kicking the remnants of the crystal ball away and fiddled with the trigger of the old, potent-looking weapon.

Pidge’s vision returned, and she jumped to her feet, pressing up against the barrier of her room and looking to see if she could spot Lance. But there was nothing put the open door to the servant’s quarters. “You look pretty comfortable with that weapon.”

“ _Well, I did get my Boy Scout’s rifle shooting merit badge. I was kind of the sharpshooter of the troupe_ ,” Lance joked, but there was an edge to his tone that Pidge couldn’t place.

“ _What would you need a weapon for?_ ” Hunk practically whimpered. “ _There better not be monsters in this game. I really can’t deal with monsters_.”

Keith huffed with obvious distaste, “ _What would you call what I found, Hunk?_ ”

“ _That was just one room though_ ,” Hunk reasoned, worry tightening in the bond and twisting Pidge’s stomach. “ _What if the haunt has monsters?_ ”

Pidge didn’t want to explain how there were fifty different possibilities for the haunt, some with no traitor and some with monsters that crawled and scavenged for blood. Or how the haunt could turn one of them against them all, thirsty for revenge or hungry for flesh or whatever the game had crafted.

“The haunt could deal with monsters,” Pidge admitted as her sight returned.

“ _More monsters_ ,” Keith breathed as if remembering the lightning of pain that laced through his muscles when he’d discovered the last omen.

Pidge sighed, running a tired hand down her face. “There are fifty haunts, and I’ve probably only played two or three of them. So I honestly don’t know what’ll happen.”

The silence that settled between them was pregnant with possibilities, of thoughts that spun like cotton candy, tethered around a single stem, a thorn of an idea.

“ _Does this mean it’s my turn?_ ” Hunk’s whisper was a quiet prod at the edges of their minds. He stood slowly, and Pidge felt the girl tug at his hand. Her hair was matted in greasy tendrils, but there was a fondness in the way that Hunk held her hand. She had stopped crying, wiping her face on his button down.

Taking a deep breath, he turned to face the girl, “ _You ready?_ ” She pulled back strands of her hair so that she could see him and nod. Hunk laughed softly, pulling the large bow from his hair and pushing her hair back instead.

“ _You got this buddy_ ,” Lance cheered him on. “ _Just don’t make any dumb decisions like someone we -_ ”

“ _Lance!_ ” Allura cut him off, speaking for the first time in a while. Her voice was curt and decisive, and Lance squeaked in surprise.

Hunk grabbed the girl’s small hand in his, her whole hand wrapping around two of his fingers. There was a small moan from Shiro and a soft mumble, “ _Keep her safe, Hunk_.”

Pidge flinched at Shiro’s despondent tone, and the suggestion that Hunk should sacrifice his safety for a piece of the game. She opened her mouth to say something, but Hunk stepped through the unexplored doorway with more confidence than he had displayed all game.

The air in the room was cool against his skin as he stepped through. The light landed immediately on a partially open coffin, a dried wreath of flowers leaning against it. Stuttering a small step back, he hit the room’s barrier.

There were two other coffins in the corners of the room. And Pidge could smell it, smell the scent of rotting death that coated everything in this room, saturating even the stone flooring. Hunk grabbed onto the girl’s hand tighter, whispering as if to comfort himself more than her, “ _It’s going to be okay_.”

The yellow spiral dissipated into thin air and tickled Hunk’s ankles. The fog drifted past his ears, threading smokey fingers into his hair. Then vanished.

And underground, everything went silent. Hunk took a step backward, but his feet didn’t thud on the stone floor. He shuttered a breath, but even the sound of breathing was gone. The girl gripped on to his hand, attempting to pull him out of his panic.

Hunk grabbed her arms, lips moving frantically to speak to her, but nothing came out. Not even a whisper of breath or a faint echo of speech. He pulled back looking at his hands. They threaded in his hair, tight and pulling as if searching for something grounding in the utter lack of sound. He tossed his head back with a scream, a silent scream that didn’t echo.

They weren’t sure how long they watched Hunk scream they couldn’t hear, felt the burn of his vocal cords.

“How long do you think this event will take?” Pidge whispered, afraid of how this would affect Hunk.

“ _Hard to say_ ,” Shiro commented, his voice sounding steadier than it had earlier. “ _Keith, can you hear anything since you’re in the basement?_ ”

But Keith didn’t respond. Didn’t say anything.

Hunk’s screams suddenly echoed loudly in their ears, making them flinch from the rawness of his voice and the shear volume he was projecting. Collapsing to the ground, he revealed in every little sound. The girl sat in front of him, worry clear on her face. She touched his cheek, and Hunk merely nodded, swallowing and taking a deep breath. “ _I’m okay, guys. I’m okay_.”

“ _That was so majorly fucked up_ ,” Keith whispered.

“ _Yeah, I can’t stand watching you guys suffer like this_ ,” Lance commented with a small sigh.

“ _Wait_.” Keith’s voice was delicately balanced on an edge of panic, “ _You didn’t have the silence?_ ”

“No.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” was all Keith muttered before he rose to his feet and opened the only door out of the pentagram chamber.

The breeze of the chasm was unfamiliar against his skin as his flashlight danced along the worn rope bridge. Pidge closed her eyes, attempting to focus her thoughts away from the memories of Keith crossing the bridge the first time - the way he had struggled even uninjured.

Keith took a step forward, flashlight stuck in the waist of his jeans. It slid further down with his belt now wrapped around his calf. Pidge couldn’t feel Keith’s pain in the rush of anxiety that stormed their bond, but she could feel the limping steps he took.

“Is there really no other way?” Pidge questioned, her thoughts slipping through the mental connection without her active consent.

“ _I think if there was, I would’ve taken it, Pidge_ ,” Keith growled, grabbing at the fraying ropes. He exhaled sharply and put his good foot on the first plank, feeling it give slightly under his weight. The bridge swayed more dramatically with each limping step.

The chasm’s light breeze made shivers dance up his spine.

When he planted his feet on solid earth, he slumped to the ground, knees giving out. Leaning back against the stony floor, his sweaty skin cooled against the stone with each stuttered inhale.

He laid there for a moment, until Shiro spoke, “ _Keith, it’s still your turn_.”

Keith rose to his feet, slumping dramatically when he put too much weight on his injured leg. “ _I know_ ,” he mumbled, pulling open the door to the basement landing and shining the flashlight around. There was only one unexplored doorway connected to the landing.

With a shallow breath that even Pidge felt catch in her throat, Keith stepped forward as confidently as he could. The door knob was almost slick under his fingers. He closed his eyes, and Pidge could feel the faltering in his fingertips.

“ _Keith_ ,” Shiro breathed, but before he could say anything else Keith slammed open the door.

The flashlight darted around the slick walls, cutting through the muggy air that clung to Keith’s skin like a second layer of dense flesh. He took another step forward. The floor was slippery under his feet, coated from the waves of the open lake before him. It looked like it ate away at the floor with waters so dark the light barely reflected off of the glassy surface.

He kicked a small stone by his foot into the water, making waves.

A yellow fog with no discernible shape rose from the rippling waters.

“ _Keith_ ,” Lance hissed, “ _do you ever fucking think about -_ ”

“ _Shh!_ ” Keith shushed everyone with the wave of his hand. The fog only made the air denser, and a single bead of sweat dripped along the contours of his back. “ _I thought I heard something_.”

Taking a tentative step backward, he tuned his ears for any sounds that weren’t the soft squelch of his footsteps. His body was so tense that Pidge felt echoes of fatigue in her own shoulders. But nothing seemed to happen. The fog dissipated, hovering just above the glassy lake peacefully.

Keith relaxed slightly.

“ _Nothing happened?_ ” Allura breathed, relief palpable in her voice.

“But the fog -”

Something slithered around Keith’s ankle, slimy and forceful. Before anyone had the chance to discern what it was - a bug, a tentacle, a dead hand clawing - before Keith was dragged. Feet swept out from under him. The impact of the stone slammed all breath out of his lungs.

The flashlight skittered from his hands and flickered.

The water was like ice against his flesh. Pidge screamed as she felt the desperation in Keith’s hands as he clawed towards the surface, lungs aching and empty even before entering the water. His muscles locked up. The thing around his ankle only tightened as he struggled. Slamming a booted foot into his own ankle, he flail desperately to get free.

It shrunk back on impact, and Keith darted from its grip. Thrashing for the surface.

Pidge placed a hand on the ground, attempting to find balance from the dizzy, light-headedness that overwhelmed her.

Keith’s gasps echoed in the open room as he broke the surface. Splashing and sucking in every breath that he could.

“ _Can’t_ ,” he fumbled, arms flapping out to the sides. All his limbs were uncoordinated, legs uselessly flailing. His head tipped back, mouth open and wheezing as he plunged back under the suffocating water. Bangs suctioned to his forehead as he broke the surface again, “ _Swim_.”

“ _Keith_ ,” Lance yelled, “ _Float on your back_.”

Keith gurgled water. It burned all the way down Pidge’s tightening throat. Struggling to keep above water, he tipped his head back. But he slip under even without the force of the thing around his ankle.

“ _Move your legs in a circular motion_ ,” Lance instructed with harsh staccato notes to his voice.

But suddenly Pidge’s vision of water and the desperation in thrashing limbs was ripped from her body as she saw Allura sprint from the chapel. She slipped on cobwebs in the entrance hall, ripping open the door to the coal shoot. Sliding down without even a whimper of fear. Her landing was harsh, her ankle rolling under the force.

Stumbling to her feet with a bruised ankle and knees, she burst through the door to the underground lake. Her flashlight highlighted Keith slipping under the water, hair suctioned to his face and desperation clawing his hands.

She threw her flashlight to the ground and jumped in after him, water shocking her nerves. Her arms wound around his torso, pressing her chest against his back. With a calculated grip, she placed the butt of her knife against his sternum to avoid injuring him further. Pulling his chest out of the water, she slowly swam backward towards the small entrance ledge. He coughed, arms still thrashing in a memory of the water slowly slipping over his head and enveloping him.

Allura placed Keith’s hands on the ledge, instructing him with a calm and steady voice - more steady than she had been since the start of the game when a dagger had plunged into her hand and mutilated her. She stabbed the knife into the stone as a means to pull herself from the water before helping the trembling Keith.

Pidge sagged against the ground, the relief so immense she felt every muscle turn to liquid.

After pulling Keith from the water, Allura gently patted Keith’s hair, allowing him to slump against her body. She closed her eyes so that the others wouldn’t be subject to seeing Keith cry. He gripped her purple dress shirt with trembling fingers. His initial cries were more for coughing up briny lake water than actual sobs. But he eventually sagged in her one handed grip.

“ _Thank you_ ,” he sobbed, rubbing a tear soaked face into the crook of her shoulder and neck. She shushed his blabbered words after that.

Pidge chewed on her bottom lip. Tears leaked from the corner of her eyes, and she squeezed her eyes closed to stop them. There was a fine air of relief in her chest at the sound of Keith’s soft whimpers, because he was alive. Breathing.

But the tightness to her chest didn’t fade. She knew it wasn’t over.

The haunt hadn’t even started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter!! This chapter has a lot of my favorite scenes!
> 
> Please leave kudos and comments! I love to hear what you thought, and they seriously mean the world to me! <3 <3
> 
> Also, please please go give Lyrikin some love on her [art for this chapter](http://lyrikin.tumblr.com/post/171391736833/yooooooooo-this-is-my-art-for-my-buddy), because hot damn isn't it so beautiful?!?!
> 
>  
> 
> Come scream at me on my [tumblr](https://voltronhastakenovermylife.tumblr.com)!


	3. Lights Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allura has just saved Keith from drowning in the underground lake.
> 
> But they are still forced to explore this house with the looming possibility of starting the haunt or discovering the traitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey-o, my dudes! I literally have no good excuse as to why posting this chapter took me so long. . . but I'm hoping to finish up this fic before Halloween!!
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter, and I'm so sorry for the long wait!

“ _Keith_ ,” Shiro’s voice was a rasp of grated sandpaper against their fragile mental bond, “ _Are you alright?_ ”

They could still feel the way he was shaking in Allura’s grasp, wet clothes heavy and tight on their limbs and each breath a trembling whimper. With her eyes closed, they couldn’t see anything, but it seemed to only increase the sensation of Keith’s sobs against Allura’s chest.

“ _He’ll be fine, Shiro_ ,” Allura commented, voice a calming hum, “ _It’s your turn_.”

Shiro rose from the moist ground of the garden, and Pidge was no longer looking at the leaking ceiling of the research laboratory. His gaze darted to the door at the far side of the gardens, where the path lined with white stones ended. With stuttering steps and his flashlight gripped tightly in his hands, he made his way to the door.

His fingers twitched along the handle, and he froze.

They waited for him to continue on, to open the door, because there was no other option but to explore this house.

“ _Shiro_ ,” Lance breathed, voice carefully crafted to be soft but forceful. Shiro jumped, hand slamming down on the knob and unlocking the door. Creaking high pitched and whaling, the door swung open to show only darkness through the sliver between the door frame and door.

“ _I can’t_ ,” Shiro moaned, open hand clenching his hair before grabbing ahold to the cross around his neck, a steadying omen. “ _What if it’s like the other event?_ ” His voice was strained, and Pidge felt her own heart pick up pace, pounding in her ears and making her fingers tremble.

The room almost seemed to tilt through Shiro’s vision, sliding and spinning. His chest was so tight and every breath felt like a wheeze against his throat. Pidge felt her hands scramble for purchase along the tiled floor of the observatory, searching for something real in the echoes of panic that reverberated through her.

“ _Shiro!_ ” Keith’s voice was a slice through the panic that had stilled everyone. “ _Patience_ ,” he prompted.

“ _Yields focus_ ,” Shiro finished with a small breath and the ghost of a smile. He pushed the door the remainder of the way open.

The room smelled of rot, moldy and dank like overripe fruit. A large table sat in the center and stretched the length of the room, crafted from weathered wood and rusting screws. Surrounding it were the remains of several chairs, toppled and legless. He took a single step inside and crunched broken porcelain plates until his shoes.

A crow was painted into the ground in a sickening yellow color that made Pidge want to vomit, but she wasn’t sure if that was an echo of Shiro’s emotions. The bird faded to fog that condensed atop the table, revealing a small glass box that hadn’t been there before. The interior was foggy when a single paw slammed against the glass.

A snout and a flash of teeth.

Shiro jumped back, running into the force field that lined the door. His frantic pulse was thundering in Pidge’s ears.

“ _It seems friendly_ ,” Hunk whispered in a tone that was too optimistic for the tremble of Shiro’s fingers or the way he purposefully strode forward and grabbed the bone dice off the top of glass box. With the flick of his wrist, he rolled the dice.

Pidge opened her mouth to say something, to warn him, but she didn’t know what was going to happen. She didn’t know this card, didn’t know if this was dangerous. And there was nothing she could do to help him; her knowledge was limited and fleeting as she explored the house and rooms appeared that she had never heard of. She could only sit and watch as the glass shattered.

Shiro was pounced on by a small dog, tripping backward and crashing into the wall behind him. It pranced on his chest, all gnashing teeth and darting tongue that lapped up every crevice of Shiro’s features.

The panic in his chest burst, shattered around a single ticklish laugh. He petted the dog calmly, scratching behind its floppy ears, and it preened under his attention. It was a mut, mangy and most definitely flea ridden, but it was friendly, nosing up to Shiro with a small whine. There was no collar, just spots of black on its dingy coat and a jagged scar across its ear.

“ _What should I call you?_ ” Shiro laughed, sitting up and the dog easily nestled between his legs.

“Bae Bae,” Pidge exhaled, smiling weakly as single hand brushed the tentative smile on her lips. Her vision returned and so did the coldness of the room without the warmth of Bae Bae curled in Shiro’s lap or the lightness of Shiro’s sudden happiness.

Pidge rose to her feet, dusting off her pants and fighting to maintain the smile and the fragment of hope, “I guess it’s my turn.”

“ _I wish I found a puppy_ ,” Hunk mumbled.

“ _You found a chick_ ,” Lance commented. “ _Isn’t that better?_ ”

“ _Better than whatever the fuck I keep finding_ ,” Keith groaned, and Pidge smiled slightly because Keith was beginning to sound like himself again. His voice was stronger, more steady and lacking the sobs that had racked him earlier.

The dark dice rolled around in her pocket, and she couldn’t help but finger them gently. They were cold against her fingertips even though they should have been warming in her pocket as everyone else explored. She slowly pulled them out.

“ _Pidge_ ,” Allura’s voice was all authority, “ _I don’t believe that’s the wisest_ \--”

But the dark dice were already rolling out of her palm as if Pidge couldn’t contain them anymore. Her muscles burned to roll them to test the fates -- to test the destiny that sucked them into this fucked up game. She felt her smile twitch, crawl up the side of her face with a twisted laugh.

The second the dice hit the ground a scream barrelled from her throat, burning and forceful and every singed nerve ending regretted letting those dice fall between her fingers. Muscles tensing as if she could snatch them all back, smother them in her pocket and forget they existed.

Her body spasmed and she collapsed to the floor, ache pulsing through her body in waves like lightning strikes. Screams echoed around the room as she clutched the bag and dug her fingers in for some kind of stability. The room tilted on its axis, spinning even as she squeezed her eyes closed and her stomach clenched in warning.

In a second, the pain vanished taking with it the pain that had resonated with every inhalation.

“ _Pidge_ ,” Allura whispered, “ _Are --_ ”

“I’m okay,” she coughed out, standing and stretching to feel for any lasting injuries. But she seemed to be alright, even the lingering aches of the earlier attack had subsided. Scooping up the dice, she shoved them back into her hoodie pocket. “It actually seems like it healed me,” she mumbled more to herself than the other members.

Swallowing thickly, she turned to the door at the far end of the research laboratory. There was only one way to go.

Slinging the medical bag over her shoulder, she kicked the door open, shining her flashlight in before she stepped past the threshold. The stench of blood was thick and cloying as yellow fog spiraled from the ground. Her flashlight stuttered over an operating table, coated in a thick, coagulated layer of blood and scalpels with bits of flesh still stuck to them.

“ _I think I’m gonna be sick_ ,” Hunk moaned, unable to block out the sights Pidge was seeing. She knew her revulsion and the clench of her stomach wasn’t helping Hunk’s nausea, but she couldn’t look away from the atrocities.

Taking another step forward, flesh rolled under her foot. A body, an arm or a leg that wasn’t there before, coiled in mist. But before she could leap away from the disgusting squelch of decaying flesh, hands pressed on her back, pushing her onto the mess. Her shoulder was wrenched as the medical bag was yanked from her grip.

Her hands slammed the ground, pain resonating in her palms as they easily sunk through the dead man’s abdomen and skittered around bones.

A giggling voice ran away from her, disappearing with the mist.

Yanking her flashlight from the soupy organs of the body, she shook her hands, hearing the splatter of decayed flesh. The flashlight flickered as the lens was cleared, showing the rest of the operating laboratory, housing old machines and open cabinets with spilled and cracked viles.

She flinched at the sound of Hunk vomiting, unable to stop the roll of her own stomach at the sticky blood that began to dry on her palms.

Her breath shuddered in her chest, fluttering around the tears and horror that made her want to scream. Turning around, she faced the research laboratory with all of its plants, seeing the upper landing and unwilling to turn her vision back to that room.

“Lance, go. My turn is over.”

She blinked and saw Lance looking out through the only door of the conservatory -- the door he had entered. Pushing the resolver deeper in the back of the jangling belt around his waist, he strode forward. Turning to the right, he chose another door in the servant’s quarters, pushing it open after lightly touching the revolver at his waist for a breath of support.

A breeze blew his skirts tight around his legs as he stepped through the threshold, air chilling his skin. Lance stood on a small bridge, a tower of sorts, that led to another oak door across a stony walkway. Along the edges were large railings, thick and moss covered. The roof sloped under the tower, and Lance gazed out at the wilderness surrounding them.

It was an expansive forest, twisting under the unmoving moon. No clouds or stars dotted the night sky.

A fine drift of yellow smoke coiled from a painted spiral on the ground. The smoke formed two long poles, connecting at the top and spanning the width of the bridge.

Goosebumps pimpled Lance’s arms as he stood as close to the door he entered as possible, back pressed against the threshold force field. The wind whipped and curled along the balcony, making him grab hold of the banister for balance.

And suddenly, dropping from thin air, three people hung from frayed ropes on the poles, skin sickly and fingers curled at their sides. They watched him with cold, dead eyes as they swayed with the breeze.

Lance stopped, fear bubbling in the base of his lungs.

“ _Papa? Mama_ ,” Lance breathed, stepping forward, but the wind battered him back against the door. And it seemed to take him a minute to comprehend what was happening, while everyone else watched in horrified silence.

Pidge heard Hunk’s small gasp through their mental bond, and finally saw the corpses clearly through Lance’s eyes. They all looked strikingly similar to him: the familiar shape of his jaw, the playful tilt to his lips, the soft curl of his hair, the kindness to his eyes, and the lithe shape to his limbs.

But Lance’s disbelief and composure broke. “ _Veronica!_ ” he screamed, focusing on the girl who’s feet swung freely in the breeze, sandals inches off the stone ground. One hand was still wedged against the rope at her neck, nail polish chipped and skin bruised like midnight. The other hung by her side, lifeless and dead.

Lance sobbed curling arms around himself as if to hold himself together even as his knees weakened and the wind forced him to the ground. He reached out for them, but the wind kept him at bay, pinning him to the stone.

The trio swung silently with eyes focused on Lance and a smile curling at their cracked lips. Then with a soft sigh, they disintegrating from the toes into the dust that piled on the ground. Lance clawed forward, desperate to do something as his nails scratched against the stones.

He coughed, the wind stealing the breath from his lungs, but then a sensation like frayed rope settled against his neck. It pulled tight. Lance choked, fingers scratching at his neck as his vision was immediately dotted with darkness. Gurgling for air, Pidge stumbled to the ground, tearing at her own neck to fight off the sensations that were haunting like ghost’s fingers.

With a warbled scream, Lance’s hands fell to the ground, focusing on keeping him steady. But his head crashed into the stone, unable to keep himself upright.

“ _Lance_ ,” Hunk choked out.

But they all watched in horror and Lance’s vision faded and became their own.

“Lance!” Pidge shrieked, chest contracting and tears welling in her eyes, because Lance -- Lance was dead. This fucking game had killed him, and all the threats they had been dancing around suddenly became so real it was like a vice was wrapped around her neck. Her vision swam as she clenched handfuls of her hair with a bitten off scream.

“ _Lance, oh my god. Oh my god!_ ”

“ _Please, answer us, Lance. Please!_ ”

“ _No._ ”

In the cacophony of noises, they heard a small cough. “ _My head already hurts enough, so please stop screaming_ ,” Lance groaned, and Pidge felt everyone’s suddenly relief.

Hunk swallowed a sob. “ _Oh my god, Lance_ ,” was all he could say before tears constricted his throat.

Pidge tilted her head back, hands slipping from her hair to cover her face and hide her sniffles from the damn mental bond. And she remembered, that no one could die before the haunt. But this wasn’t just the game. Rules could fold and change, and they were completely at its mercy.

“ _Are you alright?_ ” Shiro asked, voice quiet, because he understood the feeling of being helpless, unable to help those you love.

“ _Yeah_ ,” Lance croaked, “ _Hunky-dory over here._ ”

“ _Lance, be serious!_ ” Keith snapped surprising them all by the terror in his anger.

Lance scoffed and Pidge felt a little relaxation settle into their bond, “ _Because feeling you almost drown was so much better, Keith._ ”

“ _That’s enough._ ” Allura was calm, more sane with Keith at her side and a dagger in her hand. “ _I’m glad that you’re alright, but please don’t make light of it._ ”

There was a stiff silence as Pidge righted herself on the floor, back still positioned to the dead body that had begun to smell in the small operating laboratory she was trapped in.

“ _What else am I supposed to do?_ ” Lance whispered. And Pidge had nothing to say, no counter to what Lance was feeling as they were all trapped in this godforsaken house.

So Hunk just stood and stole their vision, forcing them once again to focus on the game and leaving this hellacious house. “ _We’ll get out of here soon, buddy_ ,” Hunk comforted as his grip tightened on the hand of the frail girl at his side. The only door in the crypt had been the one they entered through, so Hunk turned around, marched through the kitchen and basement landing.

He spared a small glance through the door Keith went through, and Pidge could see Allura and Keith still embracing. Water dripped from their hair as tendrils stuck to their cheeks. Keith’s head was resting on Allura’s shoulder, back still shuddering with every breath. Allura’s hand was resting on the stone, knife tip pointed away from either of them, while her other hand gently rested on his head.

Hunk nodded at them, and Keith straightened giving him a small smile. Pidge heard a small indignant huff from Lance before Hunk turned and marched into the game room, the first room that Keith had traveled to the basement with. There was only one unexplored doorway, and Hunk strode through with more confidence than any of them felt at the moment.

The door creaked open to show a room crowded with antique furniture, the storeroom. A large grandfather clock laid immediately in the path of the doorway, face cracked and second hand jumping in place. There were boxes stacked against one wall and a small, rotting chest open in the center of the room with a padlock hanging and rusted off the front.

The thin tendril of a spiral peeled up from the ground in wisps of smoke.

“ _An event_ ,” Allura whispered, caution and wariness evident in her tone as her hand tightened on her dagger, digging the needles further into her flesh.

The smoke curled in the air, wrapping a possessive hand on Hunk’s flashlight and making the yellow fog look opaque and threatening. Hunk’s light flickered, the room plunging into oppressive darkness for a second. Pidge’s breath stalled in her chest.

Hunk yanked the flashlight out of the grip of the smoke, pulling it to his chest, both hands trembling as he held it. The girl curled her fingers in the starched fabric of his yellow dress shirt and hid behind his body. Smacking the flashlight with his palm, Hunk’s breathing evened out as the light stuttered back on.

“ _Okay_ ,” Hunk sighed, “ _I’m not sure what that was, but_ \--”

Pidge’s vision cut out, darkness commandeering her sight. Hunk’s scream was latched behind clenched teeth. The sensation of the flashlight digging into Hunk’s hands as he fumbled with it, struggling to get it to light, burned into her hands.

“ _No_ ,” Hunk whispered like it was the final tug on the knot tying the screams to his lungs and tethered to his ribs. “ _No._ ”

The darkness felt oppressive against Pidge’s skin, closing in around her with the infinite and immense possibility of threats loomed around her. She was very away that it was only Hunk’s feelings that she was experiencing, but it trembled around her bones and forced her knees to quiver.

“Don’t worry,” Pidge mumbled, attempting to calm herself and the fluttering sensation of Hunk’s mounting fears. “Someone has batteries.”

Hunk’s scream was half bitten off as he nodded, one hand wrapping around the steady hands of the girl’s. He exhaled a sharp breath like he was steadying himself.

Pidge’s vision was once again her own as Keith’s voice echoed through the bond. “ _Hunk, should I come to you right now?_ ”

“ _Keith, I can go_ ,” Allura volunteered. And there was a moment, a tense silence that seemed to pass between Keith and Allura, something that didn’t translate between the bond. “ _Can you wait one turn, Hunk?_ ”

“ _Yeah_.” But there was a terseness to Hunk’s voice that Pidge wasn’t the only one to pick up on.

Lance began to speak, but his words trailed off, “ _You got this, buddy_.” Even his words felt hollow in this empty house.

“ _Well_ ,” Keith began, standing and stealing their vision, “ _I guess, the only thing I can do is move forward_.” His gaze was settled on Allura as she smiled up from her seat on the floor. Nodding, Keith stumbled towards the door on the other side of the small stone ledge surrounding the dark lake.

“ _Keith, wait_ ,” Allura called, reaching into her pocket and pulling out the small jar of healing salve. Dipping her fingers into the jar, she spread the vile-smelling paste on the deep bite in Keith’s ankle and the scratches down his back.

He sighed with the relief that everyone felt, the sudden ebb of fire and ecstasy of health. His smile was soft as he turned to her, “ _Thank you, Allura_.”

Striding forward with a healed leg, Keith opened the unexplored door on the small sliver of the stone landing that surrounded the underground lake. The scent of death burst from behind the door the second it opened, a dusty, cloying scent that reeked of rot and ashes.

The walls were lined with the same grey stone that echoed with each footstep. Several candle sconces were on the wall with half melted candles that dripped wax like icicles down the delicately-carved metal arms. A small crunch sounded under Keith’s foot. Flicking his flashlight down, his light settled on an ivory bone, fragile and thin and crushed to dust under Keith’s plodding foot.

Jumping backward, Keith pressed his back up against the wall, flashlight flashing over bones littering the ground and urns with ashes piling around the crushed ceramic. He pressed his fingers against the wall, fingers slipping and catching on a slender hole in the wall. His fingers traced over a slender jaw and the small bumps of teeth still buried into bone.

“ _This isn’t a solid wall behind me_ ,” Keith’s voice warbled as he spoke, eyes closing slowly, “ _is it?_ ”

“ _The catacombs_ ,” Allura whispered.

And even though Pidge couldn’t see it, a shiver traced bitter fingertips along her spine as she pictured the wall crafted of bones behind Keith’s back.

“ _Keith_ ,” Shiro spoke, and Pidge felt the steadying effect it had on the panic that was rising in Keith’s lungs like a hurricane, “ _Continue forward. Don’t look back._ ”

With a nod, Keith opened his eyes and started forward, finding a clear box with yellow smoke curling around it. An ornate spear with a tapered handle and decorative head was trapped within the box, practically pulsing with power. Black bone dice settled neatly atop.

Gritting his teeth, he grabbed the dice, shaking his hand and throwing them into the casing. They fell and Pidge’s vision focused on the miniscule number.

The box didn’t shatter.

“ _What happened?_ ”

Through Keith’s vision, she counted the face of the die, the cracks in the bone seeming to deepen with each second.

“Keith didn’t make it.”

The haunt had begun.

The glass shattered, smoke spiraling outward like a vicious predator, searching and clawing and viciously hungry. Staggering backward, Keith’s boots scrapped against the ground, flashlight swiping forward like a sword against the approaching fog.

It charged with desperation and ferocity.

Keith protected his face, hands darting up as the flashlight clattered to the ground. Lightning seared up the back of Keith’s hands, striking the ground and charing his flesh. A scream burst through Pidge’s lips, echoing the pain that pulsed against Keith’s skin.

Pidge’s vision snapped back to her room and quickly down to her hands, fingers running over the throbbing, indented burns on the backs of her hands. They were delicate numbers with charred edges and gleamingly raw centers, a sunset of pink and yellow flesh, making bile roil in her stomach.

“ _There’s a note_ ,” Keith whispered, “ _by the spear_.”

“ _I vote that Keith doesn’t get to make executive decisions_ ,” Lance grumbled, voice tinged with pain. “ _Again_.”

“The haunt had to start at sometime,” Pidge mumbled, one finger tracing the edge of the burn and searching for any lingering of pain. Lance huffed in response as if the inevitability of the haunt didn’t diminish Keith’s hand in causing it.

“ _What’s it say?_ ” Shiro asked, and there was a following silence.

“ _Some shit about a disease and --_ ”

“ _Can you just read it?_ ” Hunk snapped, unexpected and surprising. It took a moment for Pidge to remember that Hunk was still immersed in the dark, hands aching for unknown reasons and unable to move or leave the room.

Keith cleared his throat and began to read, “ _Ever since I touched that meteorite, I can feel the change working in me. Under a microscope, I found twisted DNA that is not of this world. Some kind of star-sickness. But beyond that, I have heard the creatures in my blood, talking to me. Telling me how much better use they can make of my body._ ”

“ _Creatures?_ ” Lance whispered, only to be quickly shushed.

“ _I have researched an antidote serum, but I am out of time. Soon I will belong to the microbes entirely, but before that happens, if I can steel myself, I intend to run upon my spear like the ancient Romans and hopefully eradicate the alien spores once and for all_.” Keith quieted for a moment like he was searching the spear Pidge had seen through his eyes, ornate and pulsing with power, or the bones he had crunched under his feet and lined the walls of the catacombs. “ _If hell does exist and I do not succeed, perhaps these notes will help whoever comes after._ ”

There was stagnant silence in the bond, and Pidge dragged fingers over the brands on her hands.

“ _Could we possibly be infected?_ ” Allura asked, voice steadier than even Keith’s had been while reading the note. Pidge clenched her sweaty hands and closed her eyes, almost assessing the scattered aches that resounded across her body like ripples in a once still lake.

“ _The notes say the first stage is a fever_ ,” Keith answered. “ _A virulent fever_.”

Did that mean her lightheadedness couldn’t only be attributed to the violent fights and horrors she’s experienced? The heat crawling beneath her skin. The sweat clinging to her palms and her upper lip.

Hunk’s words were a whisper, a barely there wisp within their mental connection, “ _Stages?_ ”

“ _The second stage is that_ ,” and Keith’s voice seemed to catch in his throat as he struggled to speak the next words, “ _the spores take over the host’s mind._ ”

Pidge stood, stumbling backwards to her feet. Struggling to remember experiencing everyone’s turns from their perspective, were any of them progressing faster? Did they shake and tremble and wipe their hands on their pants? Who could she trust?

Who was the traitor?

“What’s the third stage?”

“ _Horror._ ”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The haunt has started!! If anyone has played Betrayal at House on the Hill, this haunt is #43 The Star Sickness, one of my personal favorites! (I love hidden traitors!!!)
> 
> Thank you so so much to all of you who've given me kudos, and a special shout out to all of you who commented and encouraged me to continue this fic (≧◡≦) ♡ thank you so much, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter <3
> 
> You can also come scream at me on my [tumblr](https://voltronhastakenovermylife.tumblr.com)!!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so so so much for reading! <3
> 
> Please let me know what you think! I liiiiiive for comments and kudos, especially because I love hearing what your thoughts are!! Let me know who you think the traitor might be!
> 
> I will be posting the next chapter within the week! And fun fact, most of the chapter titles are based on the titles of actual cards played in the game!! (≧◡≦)
> 
> You can come scream at me on my [tumblr](https://voltronhastakenovermylife.tumblr.com) or view any of Lyrikin's amazing art at her [tumblr](http://lyrikin.tumblr.com)!!


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